Sustainable Logistics in the New Era

Dear Colleagues, 

With the increasing focus on sustainable development and circular economy, sustainable logistics has received extensive focus from both academia and practitioners across the globe. This trend has required companies not only to enhance their economic competitiveness but also to focus on the environmental performance and the social responsibility of their logistics activities. Over the years, the development and implementation of new ideas, technologies, models, and methods has significantly contributed to the sustainable practices of a wide variety of logistics operations and activities. However, research efforts are still needed to address the emerging challenges in the new era and to fully explore the potentials of cutting-edge technologies and methods in a sustainable logistics system. 

Today, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant challenges and may further alter the structure of global supply chains. The border closure, city lockdown, and reduced transport capacities have drastically hindered the flows of goods, increased logistics costs, and imposed a higher risk on vulnerable groups related to the shortage of medical supplies, foods, as well as other necessities. This requires a rethinking of the UN’s sustainable development goals and consequently affects the means of sustainable logistics. In the post-pandemic age, compared with today’s research, more efforts may be spent on the economic and social dimensions of sustainable logistics in order to tackle these emerging challenges and to better contribute to the recovery of the world’s economy and societies. On the other hand, the rapid technological advancement in Industry 4.0 has provided new opportunities to improve the sustainability of traditional logistics systems, by which the emerging challenges may be better tackled. 

Therefore, this Special Issue aims at providing a platform for discussing the emerging challenges of sustainable logistics in the new era and for presenting innovative solutions with cutting-edge technologies and methods. This Special Issue welcomes submissions of original research articles, review papers, case studies, communications, and perspective papers.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Sustainability.

Dr. Hao Yu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Logistics is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• emerging challenges of sustainable logistics
• innovative solutions of sustainable logistics
• new technologies and sustainable logistics
• sustainable supply chain management
• sustainable logistics models
• sustainable logistics practices
• sustainable purchasing
• sustainable distribution
• green logistics
• reverse logistics
• closed-loop supply chain